


you may only ask once (so be prepared for the reply)

by pseudoanalytics



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Precursor Emissary!Hermann, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 05:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14442231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudoanalytics/pseuds/pseudoanalytics
Summary: It was surprising how easily your mind accepted things, Newt decided. It was so desperate to understand and make sense of input around it that it accepted even the most tenuous of explanations in lieu of actual observation.Newt was a scientist. He was supposed to be better than this.He reached out, prodding at what little tendrils remained of a drift. It cracked instantly, bathing him in blue light and gracing him with the terrifying view of one ofthem. "Precursors..." he breathed, horrified.Hermann's smile faltered then brightened. "Incredible deduction, Newton. You always excelled at doing too little too late."





	you may only ask once (so be prepared for the reply)

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this tweet](https://twitter.com/KaijuFerio/status/986990473070854144)

Newt has been called a lot of things in his time. Narcissistic, self-obsessed, internally-fixated. But he was also a scientist, and that meant he was aware of minute changes to subjects he studied. And right up there next to himself and kaiju was one Hermann Gottlieb.

Newt had known the guy for years, in fact, he realized, for almost exactly the same amount of his life as he'd _not_ known him. And wasn't that a thought. He wondered sometimes if he didn't know Hermann just as well as himself.

They'd drifted, afterall.

Newt remembered being in a near state of panic. Otachi's baby was rapidly approaching brain death, and as far as he knew, so was he.

 _Human minds just aren't made to meld with monsters_ , he thought. _In the end, something has to give._

He had survived one drift, but he wasn't altogether certain he'd make it through this one.

"I'm going to have to ask you to do it again," Marshal Pentecost had said, and Newt knew what that meant. He was a biologist for christ's sake. He knew the risks.

Then Hermann had stepped in and cut the dangers in half.

They'd drifted, and in a horrible rush, Newt had wildly thought, _What if we aren't compatible?_ But it turned out they were, and honestly he should have known, because they had never been two sides of the same coin, but rather some sort of monstrous möbius strip, eternally leading from one of them to the other, over and over and over again.

Monstrous. And wasn't that funny.

Facing one's own feelings of affection was always a trip, but to feel them refracted back at him? Absolutely wild. Who could have ever guessed that under layers of musty wool and frown lines, Hermann Gottlieb had a heart.

They'd slotted together perfectly that night, mentally and, hell yeah, physically, and Newt had really thought this was it. This was their reward for a lifetime of hardwork and two days of sheer risk. Each other.

He remembered kisses and promises and the feeling of falling so deep, it wound around his fragile biological components. Hermann became an additional organ, no, _organelle_. A constant in all of his cells, visible on a microscopic level, because Newt couldn't possibly believe he could love someone this much and not have it etched permanently somewhere in his being.

On his being.

A tattoo seemed ill-advised. His external parts were a temple and testament to the kaiju and the war and those they'd lost. Hermann would have to be content with his internal surfaces instead.

"I love you," Newt said every night, winding his hands in Hermann's hair to grab and pull and collide. Some sort of weird reverse-mitosis where maybe they could realign their chromosomes just right and absorb into one another.

"I love you too," Hermann whispered, because he was like that now. He did that. He showed public affection and talked casually to strangers and always had a dry joke to share in social situations.

"You can thank me for that one, man," Newt had laughed. "One drift and I revamped your people skills. Dialled that shit to a hundred!"

Hermann had sniffed in that way he had where he tried not to give Newt the satisfaction of his smile.

Everything had been perfect and Newt had settled back into his work for the PPDC, and samples were off the charts right now what with the mass of kaiju that had surfaced at the end there, though Newt was trying to veer more into ecological preservation as of late.

Kaiju Blue had wreaked havoc on every environmental system on earth, and Newt was determined to ensure that biology was still a viable path of study for people in the future as well.

Then the letter arrived.

It sat, opened, on the counter for three days before Newt finally saw and picked it up. He read it and tried not to panic.

When Hermann got home from a luncheon with a few J-Tech engineers — because he did that now too, hung out with people outside of work — he found Newt casually sitting at the dining room table, letter in hand.

"You aren't taking this, right?" Newt said.

Hermann's mouth flattened. "Let me set down my things and brew some coffee."

It wasn't the flippant rejection Newt had expected. "You can't. Hermann. You aren't really... What?!"

It was a notice from a corporation in the private sector. Shao Industries. An offer to help work on a top secret programming project. Hermann had been their first pick.

 _And why shouldn't he be?_ Newt thought. _The guy's a genius. Like an actual genius and not whatever people call young kids with any slightly advanced skill in a certain subject, doomed to grow up believing they're special until the time they realize that not only are they_ not, _but they're also now ill-equipped for academic challenges. But no, Hermann is a real, verifiable genius with code. And he did kinda help save the world._

"It's an excellent opportunity," Hermann said, sitting down with their coffees. "Good pay, and a good mission statement."

"It's _capitalism_ ," Newt fired back.

Hermann's mouth squished flat.

They ended up arguing, like they always did when something was either completely unimportant or the most critical thing they'd ever discussed, until Newt had broken it, slamming his hands onto the table. "Do you want it? Do you want the job? Would it make you happy?"

And Hermann looked down at the paper, his eyes hungrier than Newt had ever seen. "Newt, I _need_ it. I need it more than anything."

"More than me?"

Hermann shook himself and looked up. Newt was trying his best not to shed angry tears for no other reason than that Hermann hadn't even talked to him about this. And he had kinda been under the assumption that them being a couple and moving in together meant huge life-shattering decisions would be a team effort.

"Hermann, I can't leave the PPDC right now. You know that. I have a huge yearlong project to try and salvage as much of the Great Barrier Reef as we can, and the funding is decent, and we aren't a _corporation_..."

The look on Hermann's face was disconcerting. "Newt, I... I don't know _why_ I want this job so badly, but I do, and... And... I'm trying to get better at doing new things. Having new experiences. It's something you inspire me toward."

And that had been that. Newt had lost.

"Well. If it makes you happy, I can't be against it." He quirked a grin that felt only slightly fake. "We get to be penpals again I guess."

Hermann's throat bobbed. "Of course. It'll only be short term. Then I'll make it very clear where my duties truly lie. I'll come back, Newt."

"Write me, okay, dude? But text and email me too."

Finally a smile cracked Hermann's face, crinkling the lines beside his eyes. "I'll call you every night."

And Newt believed him. Maybe Hermann had too.

 

* * *

 

_You've reached Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, Ph.D. I'm unable to come to the phone right now, but please leave your number and I'll return your call._

 

"Hey, Hermann! I uh, I know you've been super busy with whatever Shao's got you up to, but I wanted to make sure you've been eating and getting some sleep out there. The world isn't ending, dude. You can take a break from time to time. Anyway! Call me soon! I got your email, but I haven't had a chance to read it yet. I'll go do that now. Love you! Newt out."

 

* * *

 

"Dude, you will _not_ believe what I did today. I've been working on artificial coral reef structures, and I managed to program a model that orchestrates some natural growth formations for us to duplicate. I think all your mathy number stuff rubbed off on me post-Drift! I know you can't say what you're doing at work, but uh, maybe let me in on your personal life? Your email from last week said you made a new friend? I'd love to hear about them! Call me! Love you lots."

 

* * *

 

"Not to sound like you, but I'm a little worried. Are you good? Your last email sounded like you were kinda asking for my help with something, but you didn't ask that outright so I wanted to make sure I wasn't reading into it. If you need anything, let me know!"

 

* * *

 

_This is Hermann Gottlieb. I'm too busy to answer your call right now. Please leave a message._

 

"Hermann. It's Newt. I mean, of course it's Newt, who else would it be. Are we okay? You never answer my texts anymore. Am I bothering you? Give me a ring if you have a chance, okay?"

 

* * *

 

"It's Newt. Wow. Sorry, I hung up then immediately realized how massively insecure that last message sounded. I think I'm just projecting a little. Work's been stressful over here, and the new marshal is kinda coming down on me. Really miss having you tromping around in the lab with me. Email me soon if you don't have time to call, okay?"

 

* * *

 

"Hi there! Sorry I took a couple days to get back to you. I'm super entrenched, hah, in a new Mariana Trench project, so I don't have the time to fly out and get dinner with you and your... friend? Coworker? You've been super vague, so I have no idea who you even meant, but maybe we can soon? Give me a week or two here and let me know when you guys are free again."

 

* * *

 

_This is Hermann. Leave a message._

 

"Hey, man. What's with the voicemail? No mention of that doctorate you're so proud of? Anyway. Uh. So this might come off as a dick move but... Who is Alice? Is she your roommate? I'm not trying to cast suspicion here or anything, because you're totally allowed to have close friends. That's actually super healthy, but you talk about her an awful lot? Are you guys actually like, living together? Or was that just Hermann-humor. Um. Yeah. Sorry, I just... Have I done anything? Are the calls too clingy? Please let me know if I'm being dumb or something. I just know you haven't really been keeping in contact, and I'll do anything I can to make sure this, thing of ours, works. I love you so much, okay? God, I really do. Please just talk to me."

 

* * *

 

Newt looked down at his phone screen. Two new notifications. Texts.

The first was a reply to Newt's previous text, simply reading: "yes. alice lives with me."

The second was from the phone company, alerting Newt that the number was out of service.

Between this and the nonexistent emails and texts, Newt got the idea. "I just want to know _why_ ," he whispered. But he already knew why. He'd been himself. "Stupid... It was never going to work long-term anyway. Let alone long-distance." He threw his phone onto the bedspread of the too large flat that he apparently now owned all by himself. He slid down the wall and onto the floor and wondered why he'd never seen this coming.

Three weeks, far too many drinks, and six scathing but cathartic voicemails to a nonexistent inbox later, Newt composed himself and threw everything he had at his work. The jaeger program was restarted, and in lieu of its most respectable tech expert, Newt stepped up to the metaphorical programming plate with a vigor even _he_ didn't expect.

Teen cadets came on board, and Newt found himself desperately trying to ignore the dissolution of everything he'd ever believed in.

"Child soldiers?" he said at a PPDC council meeting. "Child soldiers? We're using child soldiers now is that what we— _Fuck!_ " He threw his folder into the middle of the table, and wasn't that a laugh. A yellow manila folder to keep in the rows of filing cabinets and metal organizers that filled his far too tidy lab space. Just another ghost drift reminder of everything he'd lost.

"I am also not a fan of this new initiative," Secretary General Mori said.

 _Mako. Her name is Mako_ , Newt thought. _Full titles were always H— were never my thing._

She sighed and made a few notes on her tablet. "But as I have been outvoted, I will reluctantly comply with the council's decision."

Newt dropped back in his chair with a huff. Some semi-important looking man whose name Newt didn't know leaned forward to address him.

"Doctor? Are you okay? You don't look very well."

 _I'm not_ , Newt thought. _I can't sleep, and I have nightmares that even Nyquil can't suppress._

"I'm getting some fresh air," he gritted out instead. "Keep going without me."

 

* * *

 

"Hey Hermann. It's Newt. Newt Geiszler, just in case you've forgotten. I get it, okay? But at least have the guts to officially break up with me to my face, you coward! Fuck you, man. You can't ghost me with stuff like this! Just tell me you never want to see me again and I can get some goddamn closure and you can move on and live your happy little corporate dream life with Alice. Shit, dude. You know, you can drift with someone, but that never replaces the need to actually fucking _talk_ with them. Don't bother calling back."

 

* * *

 

Old hurts and injuries scar over with time, and ten years after the official closing of the Breach, Newt was back in his old swing. He'd programmed six jaegers all on his own, and okay, maybe with the help of some old notebooks Hermann had left in his flat so very long ago, but Newt had made sense of them, so he still deserved the credit. He was currently being considered for multiple awards regarding his ecological clean-up discoveries and inventions. He had his own lab space in the Moyulan Shatterdome and a whole floor of interns and underlings directly below him. Any free time he had was taken up by his new kaiju blood-related pet project, and overall, he was pretty content with his life.

This feeling of happiness and stability should only have indicated to him that everything was about to change. The newest meeting informed him of an upcoming summit and vote. Shao Industries had supposedly created a line of drone pilots to control jaegers from afar, and the head personnel were all coming to Moyulan to present their creations.

 _Maybe..._ Newt wondered, before he squashed that down real quick. If Hermann _did_ attend, maybe they could be civil about it. Hermann might have left him, but they could still be friends, right? And if anything, Newt always knew he could use science to get through to him. Some things were immutable.

The sleek, white plane touched down, and Newt watched a group of people trek across the tarmac toward Mako and the marshal. One had a distinctive gait and was using a cane. Newt waited until they'd had time for appropriate introductions before he made his move.

"Hey! Hermann! I was hoping you'd tag along! You gotta come down to the lab and check some stuff out. I've got something I need your help with."

Hermann gave an awkward laugh to his associates. "If you'll excuse me for a moment please, Miss Shao," he said in flawless Mandarin. "I'll see you inside later." Then he turned and followed Newt, and wow, he hadn't thought it would be this easy, and holy heck, did Hermann realize what he looked like?

He was in a inky black, modern suitcoat, and his bowtie and wrinkled maroon dress shirt were at odds with the no doubt expensive tinted sunglasses he was sporting.

It was awful hard to remember the archaic, scholarly Hermann of Newt's memories when this schoolboyish, fashionable one was walking beside him.

 _Keep talking_ , Newt decided. _Don't overthink this. We want to keep this, not scare him away._

"Now Hermann, I know you're a super busy guy, but I've got this problem I've been trying to hash out, and you're just the person I need to help me since you've got a second."

"Why Newton, of course I have time to take a look." Hermann smiled, loose and a little wild. His hair was slicked back and down, no longer doing that mushroomy cloud thing Newt always loved. Fuck, why was it so hard to be friends with exes? "I always have time for my drift partner. I mean, by jove, we really did that!" He walked up to one of Newt's kaiju figurines and tapped its head. "We drifted with a kaiju! We saved the world!"

Newt was trying very hard not to let himself slip into pissed-the-fuck-off mode over that, but it helped that he was suddenly distracted by the realization that he had kept so much of Hermann's old eclectic ephemera. His chalkboards were up against the wall, between the filing cabinet Newt needed and the one that stored information about the Californian coastline. He rifled through to grab his pet project folder, embarrassed when an old photo of the two of them in LOCCENT came up stuck to the front.

If Hermann noticed, he didn't say anything, too busy gently trailing fingers through the chalk drawing of a DNA stand Newt had on one board. "Newton," he said in an oddly choked tone, "you should finally take me up on my offer. Fly out to Shao. We can catch dinner. You can finally meet Alice—"

"I don't need a hot meal, Hermann, I need scientific _help_." He paused and gathered himself. Why was this so hard? "Here. Check this baby out," Newt said, passing Hermann some slightly coffee-stained pieces of yellow legal paper.

Finally traces of the Hermann he knew came out. It was mostly visible in the eyeroll as he lifted his sunglasses onto the top of his head to better read the papers. "Newton, you know I can never read your handwrit— Are these rockets?"

"Yeah. For jaegers. Your old work was incredible. Fantastic really, and I'm saying that as someone who just spent the last decade going through all your notes and code on the originals. But the deployment time is too slow, right? By the time we get them out there, the kaiju is a hundred miles further inland."

"Newton, let me stop you right there. The physics of this is impossible... The boost to mass ratio alone— There's no fuel—"

"Ah, ah, ah!" Newt crooned, reaching for a vial.

Hermann blinked, and Newt wondered how wet his eyes were that they could so easily reflect the vivid blue. "Is that... kaiju blood?"

"Combined with rare earth elements, this lovely concoction has the power to do _exactly_ that. All I need is a prediction model. A way to chart how high they'll peak into the stratosphere so I can calculate fuel capacity and amount with the structurable limits of each jaeger."

But Hermann was shaking his head. "Let me stop you right there. Even if I _wanted_ to help you write a predictive model, you'd blow yourself to pieces fiddling with that stuff. It's impossible."

Newt froze. The science approach was supposed to work. It always worked before because Hermann was Hermann and Newt was Newt and the pull of knowledge and experimentation was always too strong... "So you won't help me?"

Before Hermann could reply, his smartwatch beeped and he frowned down at it. "It appears that duty calls, Newton. It's been great catching up with you." He gathered his cane, and god, it had inlaid gold filigree and was that _mahogany_ , and headed for the door.

"Hermann!" Newt screeched, a last desperate bid for his attention. "I uh, I still get nightmares."

A mixture of expressions flitted across Hermann's face, all incorrectly sized somehow. "Well." Hermann shrugged one bony shoulder. "It was worth that hell of rush though wasn't it?" Then he turned and walked out of the lab, leaving Newt alone with a handful of rejected science and blackboards too tall for the cramped space.

 

* * *

 

It was surprising how easily your mind accepted things, Newt decided. It was so desperate to understand and make sense of input around it that it accepted even the most tenuous of explanations in lieu of actual observation.

Newt was a scientist. He was supposed to be better than that.

But Jake told him to find Gottlieb, because if Liwen Shao really _was_ off the rails, he was their best bet at details on internal affairs, so Newt accepted his second mission ever and finally took off to see the place his ex-partner had begged him to visit.

He found Hermann in the halls of a company in chaos. "She bribed you, man. She used your excitement for the job, these new duds, and fancy apartment— Help me, Hermann," he screeched. "Help me save the world again." Before Hermann could answer, armed security workers found them, hauling them to an elevator, doubtlessly to take them to Liwen herself.

Hermann cleared his throat slightly, and Newt glanced over. Following the cues inherent in Hermann's tiny nod, Newt shot his hands to nose. "Oh god! My nose! My nose is bleeding again. It's the ghost drift—" As a few of the men leaned close to see, Hermann spun, lashing out with his cane and knocking three back against the wall.

The guard closest to Newt pulled his gun and they wrestled for it until Hermann finished with the others and took out Newt's rival with a blow to the head.

"Thanks, man!" They stumbled out of the elevator. "Dude, if I didn't have massively unchecked residual romantic intentions for you, I'd totally hug you right now." The adrenaline sang through Newt's veins and he finally said _fuck it_ and moved in.

For a second, his arms wrapped around Hermann's waist and his head pressed into his chest, he felt a sense of warm completion. Absolute safety.

"If you're done groping me, we have some drones to disable," Hermann said wobbily. And even though he pried Newt off, there was something there, and Newt wondered in a fit of weakness if Alice gave such good hugs.

Whatever it was that she had, Newt figured _he_ didn't. What had he been doing to Hermann all this time that ten years apart had allowed him to finally bust out of his shell? Newt really must have been smothering him.

 _It's a classic biologist move_ , he thought as he watched Hermann take the gun from his limp hand, holding it aloft as they marched into Shao Industries' center of command. _Gotta rip apart everything in front of me._

Hermann cleared the room with ease, one coworker only pausing to hiss, "I always knew you would snap." Newt sighed and took in the giant monitors and stack of data towers. "You know your way around in here?"

A scoff. "Newton, it's as if you don't even know me." _Do I?_ "Of course I left myself a backdoor into the system. Just in case I ever needed to do a little poking around."

Newt's eyebrows shot up and he failed to keep affection from bleeding into his voice. "Holy shit. That's a surprisingly sly move for you, you sneaky bastard." He watched Hermann's fingers fly across the keys. He must have been in his element. The world of programming that Newt had just recently tapped into. Then the screen changed. "What..." Newt swallowed. "What did you just do?"

The voice that answered didn't sound quite like Hermann. "Oh, only what I've been planning for the last ten years." He turned around, sunglasses perched on his forehead, hair tousled, and a wide, _definitely_ creepy grin on his face. "I'm ending the world."

It took Newt a second to catch on. He may have been brilliant, but he froze in absolute confusion because, what the _fuck_. "What? Why?! Hermann—"

"Why? Hmm. Perhaps because no one thought any more of me than the 'grandpa-esque' man scrawling with chalk in the basement. Perhaps because I was never so much as credited with assisting in the drift that saved this pitiful planet. Perhaps because you and all your infuriating little habits and unrequited love drove him to it—" Hermann cut off. "Me. Drove _me_ to it." He laughed in that foreign way that Newt didn't recognize. "I'm really afraid I must apologize, Newton. I just haven't been feeling myself lately!"

Newt was busy fighting back emotions, but this gave him pause. He reached out then, prodding at what little tendrils remained of a drift. It cracked instantly, bathing him in blue light and gracing him with the terrifying view of one of _them_. "Precursors..." he breathed.

Hermann's smile faltered then brightened. "Incredible deduction, Newton. You always excelled at doing too little too late."

It stung, but Newt didn't have time for that. "Hermann, please. You're a good man. A really, really, great man with upstanding morals, and, and, _ambition_. And you always think the best of people, just like I'm trying to do for you now... You can fight this, dude, you can—"

Hermann moved faster than Newt had ever expected of him. He reached out for Newt, who turned around in an attempt to run. This was promptly thwarted by a hard, unyielding pressure against his neck. Newt gasped and choked and tried desperately to breathe. His flailing hands found and felt the smooth length of Hermann's cane at his throat. They followed along it until he could gently stroke the thin, bony hands holding it tightly to him. Hermann was talking still, and Newt struggled to listen over the rush of blood in his ears.

"I'm afraid I'm not— Newton... He's _not_ strong enough. _None_ of you are strong _enough_!" The overlaying timber of the Precursors warped Hermann's voice with a foreboding vibrato.

Newt just wished he could see his eyes.

_Holy fuck. Am I about to die?_

"Newton," came a weak whisper near one of his ears. "I'm sorry. They're inside my head..."

The world tunneled away from him, and Newt thought, _This is it_ , and just when he was certain it was the end of the line for a certain Geiszler, he found himself on the floor, gasping for air, as Hermann monologued at Liwen Shao herself.

She was pointing a gun at Hermann, and wait no. _No!_ Newt lunged for her leg with the last of his strength, knocking her off balance and throwing her shots wide.

Hermann ducked and dodged away, making it around the corner as he sprinted at speeds that Newt hadn't seen from him before.

 _There's so much you can do when you're unable to feel pain_ , Newt thought.

"You let him get away!" Liwen shouted.

"That's not— That isn't Hermann! The Precursors... from that time we drifted... They've infected him somehow, his mind—"

She threw her hands up in frustration. "And now he's in the wind! We've lost him."

He felt a little bad for thinking about it and a time like this, but Newt wondered if just maybe... maybe it _wasn't_ Hermann who had left him. But he only spared a moment for that thought because it was making him reevaluate every text and every email. Every handwritten letter and brief talk on the phone.

In retrospect, that should have been the first sign something was off. Hermann with a girlfriend.

A girlfriend…

"No," Newt said. _I think I know exactly where he's gone._

She would know. Whoever _she_ was.

"What do you mean 'no'? And where are _you_ going?" Liwen called.

"To find Alice."

"Who?"

He didn't reply.

 

* * *

 

Hermann's flat was in the center of the city, prime real estate, and Newt was lucky he still had the address in an email in his inbox. He waved for a cab as soon as he hit the street.

The building was sleek and shiny and just _screamed_ gentrification, but Newt knew it fit Hermann's new, fancier sensibilities. Except, he supposed those really weren't Hermann's at all.

The ride up in the elevator was disconcerting. A tinny speaker played smooth jazz like it didn't realize the world was ending, and Newt was apparently one of the people who had to try and save it yet again.

What was _more_ disconcerting, Newt found, was that Hermann's front door was wide open.

"Hello?" he called. "Hermann? Alice?" He listened and heard nothing, so he hazarded a cautious step inside. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to fight you. I just... I just want to talk."

Hermann's apartment was also white and contemporary, but the walls were cluttered with posters and memorabilia for everything from bands to monster movies. There were little figurines on shelves that should have held books, and holy shit was that a _nendoroid_? It looked nothing like a place Hermann would ever inhabit.

"I'm here as a friend," Newt tried again.

There was a small staircase leading to a raised room, most likely the bedroom. Shirts and pants were strewn messily along it.

 _Please no women's undergarments,_  Newt pled the universe.

There was a soft thump from inside, and he froze. "Alice?" he tried one more time.

_Fortune favors the brave, and victory favors the element of surprise._

_Or something like that._

He leaped up the stairs and into the room and found two horrifying things in rapid succession.

One, Hermann was sitting there on the bed, still smiling.

Two, holy _fucking shit_. Alice was a kaiju brain. _Alice_. Was. A. _Kaiju_. Brain.

"A little late to be taking me up on my offer," Hermann said dryly. "Also, has no one told you it's rude to visit unannounced?"

"You have," said Newt, a little distracted by the brain. "Or at least Hermann did."

He frowned in reply. "I _am_ Hermann."

Newt hummed. He saw the Pons headset now, and oh god, how long had he been blind to this?

"He misses you, you know," the Precursor Emissary continued, as if it wasn't odd to insist you were someone and then refer to yourself in third-person immediately after. "Has for years. I wasn't going to tell you, but we might as well."

"What? Why would you tell me?"

Hermann's body shrugged. It was so disconcerting to see him like this, loose-limbed and casual. "Because I'd been debating which would hurt you worse: believing you'd pushed him away like you eventually do to everyone, or knowing he wanted you back just as badly as you want him and there is nothing he can do about it."

Newt jerked. He fiddled with his tie and pushed up his glasses. "I want to speak to him. Just him."

"It doesn't work like that," the emissary said with a smile. "We don't detangle that easily."

"How did you get the brain? It was lost in transit. That was..." _when we were still together._ "a long time ago."

"Would you believe it was easy? I did it because I was worried about _you_. I was afraid _you_ would drift with it again if you received it. So I had it put in my private storage." Hermann looked vaguely weary. "It's hard to know if it was early influence or not."

"So when'd you do it. The second drift."

Slender fingers traced the gold embellishment on the cane. "I don't remember."

"Bullshit."

Hermann's head snapped up and he glared. "You want a date? I honestly don't have one. It wasn't a holiday, and it wasn't because of a fight. It was just a completely average day. You of all people should understand burning curiosity." A strange look passed over his face. "Are you? Curious, that is."

In her tank, Alice sighed and twitched. A tubular appendage smacked the glass.

"No," Newt lied.

"A pity. It's part of the scientific method. Data corroboration with others. Testing the same experiment to see if the results can be replicated."

The Pons begged Newt to look at it, and he refused to give it the satisfaction.

"You would see _everything_. She would teach you about the Breach. She'd answer your every question about kaiju. She would give you knowledge beyond your wildest dreams."

Newt shook his head. "No, Hermann."

"Ah yes. Hermann," Hermann said. "You would find him too."

Newt blinked slowly.

"He's in here. In the drift. It would be so simple for you to find him. You can feel it in here. His love. He misses you."

Newt's mouth was dry. He tried to swallow.

Hermann had many flaws, but some of them were so close to being strengths just by their nature. He'd always had the tendency to see the best in everyone. He submitted to authority out of blind trust. He accepted people's word as their truth.

He was strong-willed. Obstinate.

Newt thought he was too, but maybe he wasn't.

Somewhere, if the multiverse theory held true, there was a reality where Newt was the one the Precursors chose. There, Hermann no doubt figured it out instantly and saved him from himself before it was too late. Mako probably wasn't dead after a jaeger knocked her gracelessly from the sky. The last adult jaeger pilots hadn't been smashed in their connpods.

Hermann would have solved the rocket problem.

"Newton, you've sent children to fight monsters. You can't beat us this time."

Newt felt an odd sensation on his face, and when he reached up, he found tears sliding down his cheeks. "I..."

"Your world is ending. You've lost. They'll never reach my kaiju in time." Hermann stood up and walked to Alice's tank. "They'll all die. And you will too." He stooped and picked up the Pons with his free hand. "Wouldn't you give anything to see him one last time? To tell him you love him?"

Newt shook, trying to breathe.

Hermann extended the Pons toward him. "She'll show him to you. If you ask nicely."

Hermann would be stronger than this. Hermann would hold out. Hermann wouldn't throw away his humanity just for one last shot at seeing Newt.

"Newton," said the thing that was inhabiting Hermann's space. "Newt."

Somewhere outside, a kaiju was roaring near Mt. Fuji, Japan.

Newt reached out and took the headset.


End file.
